If Ohtani moves, then Japanese press will follow
We just couldn’t let this stuff go …
Everyone who gathered at the Gaylord Opryland for Major League Baseball’s winter meetings this week asked the same question over and over again: Which team is going to sign
Shohei Ohtani?
For one franchise, Ohtani’s decision will define the offseason. For other prominent free agents, it will finally move their markets forward. For Taro Abe, it might change his life, writes Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times.
Abe, a reporter with the Japanese newspaper Chunichi Shimbun, isn’t just tasked with the around-the-clock work that comes with chronicling Ohtani’s free-agency developments. Abe and his family — his wife and 9-year-old daughter — would likely have to move from their home in Irvine if the two-way star chooses not to sign with the Dodgers or Angels.
“I talked to my boss and if
Ohtani goes to Toronto or Chicago or another city, I think I’m going to move,” said Abe, who moved to the United States to cover Ohtani at the start of the 2022 season. “I’m 80 percent, 90 percent sure.”
Abe isn’t the only one. Nobuhiro Saito, a reporter with Nikkan Sports News, would move from Torrance if Ohtani signs elsewhere. Akiyuki Shiraishi ,a reporter with Kyodo News, said it’s “50/50” whether he would have to move from Irvine.
While Ohtani is expected to sign the richest contract in North American sports history with a franchise of his choosing, the reporters, whose jobs require them being away from home most of the year, are ready to uproot their lives without the carrot of life-changing money.
It’s another oddity surrounding Ohtani’s secretive free-agent process. Wherever Ohtani ends up, dozens of reporters will be there to chronicle the next chapter of his baseball career as they have in Anaheim.
“We need Ohtani,” Abe, 45, said. “He’s not just a baseball player. He’s a rock star. Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber. Young, old, they love him. Everybody talks about Ohtani every day.”
Shiraishi, 35, spent 10 years covering Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan before moving to the United States. He moved to Irvine in 2022 with his wife and son to focus on covering Ohtani’s every move with the Angels the last two seasons.
He said he’s started looking at apartments in Ohtani’s possible destinations — Toronto, Chicago and San Francisco among them.
Trivia question
On this date in 1949, the All-America Football Conference merges with the National Football League. Three teams from the AAFC join the 10-team NFL. What were the three teams?
He said it
From Washington NFL owner John Preston Marshall, on the AAFC: “The worst team in our league could beat the best team in theirs.”
Trivia answer
The Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts moved to the NFL. The league was called the NationalAmerican Football League, but months later the National Football League name is restored. Marshall’s team was hurt by the presence of the Colts before and after the merger. Once a top team, Washington began a long decline spurred by coach Ray Flaherty’s defection and that of many important players to the AAFC.